


Choose Your Side

by Telaryn



Category: Angel: the Series, Leverage
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Chases, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Baggage, Family Drama, Family Secrets, Loyalty, M/M, Relationship(s), Secrets, love is not enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2015-01-12
Packaged: 2018-03-07 07:45:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: None. - Warning
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3166982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quinn finally takes the job that puts him on the wrong side from Eliot and everything he has been coming to realize he wants for himself and his life.  Unfortunately when Wolfram & Hart calls for a meeting, only the deeply stupid say no.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choose Your Side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lynne_monstr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynne_monstr/gifts).



> One of the challenges of writing this many prompts is keeping myself from getting into a rut. And while I loved your thoughts on kink, lynne_monstr, I'd just finished a bunch of fics that were close enough to what I thought you wanted that I needed to go in a slightly different direction in order to make your gift uniquely yours.

_It’s not him…it’s not him…oh God…_ Target finally secured, Quinn backed away, wiping his hands against his jeans. He’d almost refused the contract when they’d shown him a picture of who he was chasing, and up close the resemblance was even more striking.

Retreating to the safety of the dossier he’d been given, Quinn checked the target’s name again. _Lindsey McDonald._ “It’s not him,” he said out loud, wondering when he was going to start believing it.

Grabbing a nearby chair, he spun it around and straddled the seat, folding his arms across the back. “Who the hell are you?” It was a question he would likely never know the answer to – not in the way he needed it told. His instructions for securing McDonald had been very detailed, with the promise of dire happenings if he deviated from them in the slightest. If Lindsey wasn’t anyone known to Eliot Spencer, Quinn wouldn’t be able to expect any answers from that quarter, and if he _was_ , it would likely be suicide for Quinn to ask the questions.

 _Breathe Quinn…what’s next?_ Setting the collar around his target’s neck was supposed to send an automatic message to his employers, with extraction to follow in twelve hours. “God, I hate magic,” he spat, pushing abruptly to his feet again and heading for the apartment’s tiny kitchen. It was an area of retrieval work he’d always avoided before now, but when Wolfram  & Hart asked for a meeting only the deeply stupid said no.

_”Come back with me.”_

Ever since the job Quinn had done as a favor for Eliot, the two of them had been spending more and more time together. Nothing regular, but a week here, two weeks there when their schedules meshed. The last time had been in Paris, in an apartment Quinn had been surprised to learn was Eliot’s. Quinn had four days between jobs that landed just when Eliot was going to be in the area.

The invitation had come the last morning they’d spent together; lying in bed, limbs intertwined. “I’ve gone too far,” Quinn said, hugging the other hitter to him. “I can’t turn things around like you did. I’m not as strong as you.”

“You just need a good enough reason,” Eliot argued. “Something to mean more than the money or your reputation.” He’d pulled free then, going up on one elbow to look down at Quinn. “You don’t talk about it, but you have to know that the odds are against you continuing this streak of never failing to complete a contract. Eventually you’re going to come up against somebody good enough to stop you.”

“You’re the only one good enough to do that,” was Quinn’s automatic response.

Memory of the look in Eliot’s eyes, and the implication that they were headed for a moment when he would be required to do exactly that were uppermost in Quinn’s thoughts as he poured himself a glass of water with shaking hands and drank it down.  
***********************************  
“All I’m saying is that it sounds like a trap,” Hardison protested. He and Parker were watching Eliot pack a small duffle bag. “Zombie twin has access to all that magic – what could be so wrong that he needs little old human you to bail him out?”

Eliot paused on Hardison’s use of the word ‘human’, but quickly decided it wasn’t worth having that discussion again. If it made the hacker feel better to believe that Eliot’s strength, skill and rate of healing were within normal human parameters, so be it. Eliot knew the price that had been paid to improve his chances for survival in his chosen field…it was why when Lindsey called, he was always going to be obligated to answer.

He heard Hardison draw breath again, but when he glanced up, Parker was quieting him with a look. “I’m with him about you going alone,” she said, looking at Eliot. “Wouldn’t this go faster with all of us?”

It never failed to amaze him - the depth of the loyalty he’d been given from two people who had spent the early part of their lives determined to work alone. “Not necessarily faster,” he said, trying to let them know without words how genuinely touched he was at their offer. “Messier though. Stuff with Lindsey always is. Best I just take care of it myself.”

 _Especially when the Senior Partners are involved._ That was the part he didn’t mention. Evil that large, Parker wouldn’t be able to resist making a play for them. The problem was that you didn’t take on the Senior Partners of Wolfram  & Hart. You joined them, you ran or you died. His brother had tried the first and the second, and if Eliot couldn’t reach him in time was going to experience the third.

GPS got him to where Lindsey had sent his SOS. Eliot found the phone in the penthouse apartment his twin had been calling home. “Nobody ever said you were subtle, man,” Eliot muttered, grabbing his pack and digging out what he would need for the next part of his hunt.

He wasn’t a natural magician like a witch, but Eliot had done enough contract work for his brother over the years that a rudimentary education in certain types of magic had become necessary for survival. A few phrases in Latin over an amulet Lindsey had given him yielded a glowing map hovering in mid-air. A red line showed the trail taken by whoever had been sent to retrieve his brother.

Quieting that part of his brain that was sifting through possible candidates for the job, Eliot waited for the red dot to appear that would show Lindsey’s current location. After a full minute, he was forced to accept that something – or someone – was interfering magically with the spell. “Son of a bitch,” he grumbled, setting the amulet down momentarily and pulling out his pocket knife.

He held very few advantages against an organization like Wolfram & Hart, but if they had taken steps to magically conceal Lindsey from all tracking spells there was one thing Eliot had that could cross all magical barriers. Pricking one of the veins in his forearm, he took up the amulet again and repeated the spell – this time letting three drops of his own blood fall on the stone’s surface.

The map blazed up again, and this time the red trail ended in a clearly defined red dot. “That’s more like it,” he said, making a mental note of the dot’s location. He could be there within two hours, extract Lindsey and the two of them be in the wind before nightfall.

“Whoever you are,” he said, dispelling the map and starting to clean his tools, “it’s about to become a very bad day.”  
****************************  
Quinn had always hated waiting. His preferred jobs were in and out with the cash, involving minimal down time. _I never second guess my choices,_ was his most often used justification, but times like this it became a soul-kicking lie.

The collar he’d been given to secure his target was a blessing and a curse. It worked, in that it kept its victim unconscious – and if he was to believe the people that had given it to him, invisible to all magical and mundane surveillance. The downside was that it left Quinn alone with a man who was the exact image of the man he loved.

And when that realization rose in his mind, he tried desperately to shove it back into whatever dark, Freudian corner of his mind it had come from…but it wouldn’t go. He’d been falling in love with Eliot for months, and if he hadn’t been such a blind, stubborn idiot he would have taken Eliot up on his offer in Paris.

 _It’s not too late,_ the tiniest part of his soul that still believed in happy endings tried to insist. _Get out of this job with your skin intact and then you can make it all okay._

Another half hour passed before his phone vibrated for his attention. As advertised, there was a picture of the man tasked with taking Lindsey McDonald off Quinn’s hands. Quinn texted back the pre-arranged acknowledgement and settled in to wait. _Not long now._

Approximately ten minutes later, there was a tentative knock on the door. Gun at the ready, Quinn checked the peephole and confirmed the person waiting matched the photo he’d received. Lowering his pistol against his thigh, he unlocked the door and opened it – stepping carefully back.

The Wolfram & Hart collector locked eyes with Quinn for a moment. There was a thud, and he stiffened – his eyes rolling back in his head as he collapsed. Startled, Quinn brought his weapon up again – zeroing in on the man who had been concealed behind him.

_Eliot._

Heart dropping into his stomach, Quinn nevertheless held his ground. His expression furious, Eliot’s gaze ticked past Quinn to where Lindsey lay on the couch – bound and collared – and then back to Quinn. “Your streak is officially over, Quinn.”

He took a few steps forward. Quinn matched him step for step, moving backwards. “Eliot,” he said, still not lowering his gun, “I can explain.”

Reaching down, Eliot pressed two fingers to McDonald’s ankle – checking for a pulse. Satisfied that Lindsey was alive, he turned his full rage back on Quinn. “You’re not going to explain,” he said. “You’re going to make a choice on how the next several minutes are going to go.”

“And unless you want to end up eating that gun, dropping it right now would be a very good start.”


End file.
